Birth and death, they are a given, unavoidable. Often seekers assume that in the limited timeline strung between those two points, they must race to make the lotus flower of awareness open. But Soseki's Zen practice has revealed a fundamental truth: By contemplating birth and death with a truly still mind, one realizes that the lotus does not need to be opened; independent of death and birth and the thin space of time between them, the lotus is already open! Awareness naturally and always IS. We don't become awakened, we just notice that we already are awakened. "The lotus has already / Opened its flower."